


Always at the same place, beside me

by lilllac



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:20:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23320834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilllac/pseuds/lilllac
Summary: Sasuke likes to watch the clouds and Hinata likes to think they could be together, if only they had that same freedom.
Relationships: Hyuuga Hinata/Uchiha Sasuke
Comments: 1
Kudos: 33





	Always at the same place, beside me

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my first language, so I apologize for any mistakes to be found.   
> Title taken from the song gravity, by tae-yeon.   
> Hope everyone enjoys the story.

When the afternoon began to idly say goodbye, painting the sky a deep shade of lilac, orange, and then dark blue, Hinata knew where to go if she wanted to find him. Her steps echoed through the fire exit staircase's walls, almost as loud as her heartbeat.

She didn't understand how she could still be nervous. Not after three years of doing that.

But perhaps Hinata had always been like that: inconsequentially destined to pick up after an errant heart that never failed to falter.

The door creaked when it was opened. He always complained about it, but, so strangely contrasting to the rest of his life, had never given any sign of intending to fix it - it was three years of creaking doors and lilac skies now.

Hinata hid her hands in the front pocket of her sweatshirt in the same way that she hid her most impertinent questions at the back of her mind. Similar to the way she told herself that he had never made a point of fixing the door because he liked to know when she was coming.

It wasn't fair, she thought. That she was always a premeditated journey in Sasuke's life and that he was always an undecipherable unknown in hers.

Sasuke did not move his face when she approached but removed the arm that had been resting on one leg and spread his hand on the gray tile floor, languid fingers covered with bandages once again.

"Sakura told me an interesting story today," she said, still standing, twisting her fingers inside her pocket.

"Really?" Sasuke replied, finally turning to her. The wind shook the strands of hair that were not bound by the thin silver tiara. Hinata hesitated, just as she always did. There was a kind of strength ... a magnetic thrust in Sasuke's fierce and so earnestly sincere look, as if he had opened a slit in his chest and left his heart to beat in full view, clear and yet forever unreachable. "How was it?".

"It involves a puppy, some bread, and a very angry baker," she said. Gently, she placed the backpack on the floor behind her and smoothed the pleated skirt so she could sit.

"Sounds fascinating," he replied. As soon as Hinata was comfortable, Sasuke took the suit from the uniform, which he had tossed over his lap, turned it over, picking up the pack of cigarettes he had in his inner pocket, and then held out the clothes for her. And, as she always did, Hinata placed the jacket over her legs to prevent the wind from swinging her skirt.

Ino said that boys liked it when it happened, but Hinata was not so sure of the truth of it. At least not with Sasuke, who always seemed to be looking up, though, and never genuinely giving her the attention that Hinata hoped to receive.e

When Sasuke's cigarette was half gone, and Hinata's (Sakura?) story near the end, she waved her hand in front of her nose once, to dissipate the condensed smoke that thickened. Sasuke made sure to expel towards the opposite side.

As she finished telling him, Hinata watched Sasuke's expression, not so discreetly. It didn't matter to him. Sasuke knew people were staring. Hinata's gaze, however, never seemed to bother him as much as the others'.

Sasuke had surprisingly delicate features for someone so serious. If she looked from a distance, Hinata would have him as a dancer - a painter, perhaps. The way he looked at the sky and the misshapen clouds reflected in the dark irises gave her feeling that there was an entire universe in Sasuke's mind, a reflection of his soul that hid inside the mirror in his eyes, trying to get out.

If there was, in fact, Hinata would not know. For Sasuke did not share with her more than she asked, and Hinata would never ask for a piece of his soul knowing so well that he had already lost so many. Even though the boy already owned a large part of hers.

Eventually, the sky darkened, and she heard, very faintly, the last bell of the day sounding below, and the tired members of the school band and the teams leaving their extracurricular activities. In a few minutes, the caretaker would come to inspect the terrace door, and although he knew that Sasuke had stolen his keys years ago, Hinata didn't know what he would do with the information that she was also there.

"That one over there," Sasuke said suddenly, and Hinata was startled because he never started conversations so spontaneously. "What does it look like to you?"

Hinata squinted to see where Sasuke was pointing, still holding the mint cigarette between his fingers, greenish smoke lazily rising. From there, it looked like she was breaking free to reunite with the clouds in the sky ...

... "A bird," she said.

Sasuke smiled slightly, not for more than a fraction of a second. "What kind of bird?"

"A crow" and, before she could think better, added: "like you".

Sasuke lowered his hand and stubbed out his cigarette on the tile. He was silent.

Hinata sighed and looked up. From a distance, all the clouds looked the same, no matter how much Sasuke insisted on their ubiquity. Eyes closed, she wondered what she was doing there.

If there was still any remnant of the fifteen-year-old girl who had become infatuated with the boy with dark hair and a few words, she had long since been lost and never found her way back. It was difficult to maintain any illusions about Sasuke when he was so keen that people knew who he was.

And if there was any remnant of the young woman, merely a little older, who had thought she might be able to heal a wound as severe as his with a little love, she had also packed up and left.

Sasuke had no room for anyone in his life but himself and the gigantic importance that his single presence occupied.

And Hinata knew that. She knew that, three years ago, when she had followed him out onto the terrace and Sasuke greeted her with just a raised eyebrow, and, over the years that had passed, he had entertained her with little phrases and statements and just enough of himself to keep her going, thinking that their conversations were not solely one-sided, Sasuke had seen her as pleasant company - curious, even - and no more than that.

And in such moments, her eternally wandering heart faltered even more. Because Hinata so desperately wanted to be needed and the world had no compassion to give her a few more sweet years of childlike innocence before taking her by the shoulders and putting her in a demanding and risky social status, as if to say, loud and clear that, if Hinata wanted to be seen so badly, it would be by the whole world, and not by a single boy.

And what had once been her late-afternoon adventure, her monosyllabic conversations and the dark gaze of the ocean floor, had become a haven of calm that she could feel slowly fading.

How did Sasuke feel in the middle of it all? Was there any - a single - thought in the back of his busy mind that asked him to trust Hinata the way she trusted him?

"Crows are intrinsically intelligent," he said, cutting her insecurities at the root. “If someone hurts them, they can remember the face, and they attack again, together. I don't have a pack, but the rest seems to be quite true ”.

"I have," she commented. “A murder of crows too big. But I'm not sure if they wait for the first offense before attacking ”.

A cold draft stirred Hinata's hair and she noticed that it was actually getting dark now. Soon, Neji would text her asking where she was, and Hinata would have to come up with an excuse to meet him in the parking lot.

She knew that, and so did Sasuke. So it didn't seem to make sense to her when the boy laid his head on her shoulder and murmured:

“Birds and clouds are very similar too ... everyone thinks they are truly free, but they are just as trapped as we are. To this gravity. To this world ”.

_The same way I'm trapped with you?_

"If none of them are truly free ..." she hesitated. "What do you consider freedom?"

Sasuke was silent again. Hinata's cell phone vibrated. Neji. She watched him again, his eyes fixed on the railing that separated the terrace from the rest of the sky. And then, he raised his face, without, however, taking it from her shoulder, and looked at her. And for the first time, it seemed to her that Sasuke was not looking through or beyond, but at her.e

Hinata could see herself reflected in the obsidian orbits and wondered if, for Sasuke, she was always as beautiful, true and expectant as she looked on his eyes.

"I have another answer," he said, looking ahead again. Hinata felt him moving, and when she found herself, Sasuke had his little finger against hers, where both of his hands rested on the gray floor. "If I had the freedom I wanted ... I would choose to stay here".

Sasuke could be referring to a million things, but Hinata decided to ignore the voice that shouted fears and uncertainties, and intertwined her fingers with his, choosing to believe that Sasuke saw in her the same life that she saw in him.

A life where they could be together, there, under the sky that slowly became starry, with hopeful eyes and insignificantly dull conversations.

And, as Sasuke went back to observing the magnitude of the darkness that spread ahead of them, Hinata chose to close her eyes and savor the suffocating importance that boy had made in her heart, as well as the very gravity that kept her feet stuck to the ground, so close to heaven.


End file.
